Της μαθήτριας της Β΄ Λυκείου Φωτιάδου Φωτεινής
Namazzi Alkmut was very young when she was forced to leave Uganda. Even today, she remembers that day as if it were yesterday. Her mother was a hardworking woman, left alone to raise her children after the death of her husband. The first time Namazzi saw her mother cry was as she pushed her onto a small boat with many other people.
Food and water were no longer enough. Sacrifices had to be made. The living conditions? Unimaginable. Namazzi had turned nine just a few days earlier. There was no birthday cake, of course, only fear. At just nine years old, she was already on her way to a foreign country. She was terrified, hugging her teddy bear tightly as everything changed in the blink of an eye.
“I still remember everything,” she says. “I am 86 years old now, and I cannot forget. My bare feet touching the soil of the new land. My head turning left and right. Everyone was looking at us. Why? Why were they staring? They should have minded their own business. They didn’t help anyway…”
She eventually arrived at a refugee camp, where she began school. At the same time, she had to start working at a very young age. It was extremely difficult at first, but slowly, she got used to it.
And now, after all these years, she still remembers everything that happened. She still holds the same little teddy bear from that journey, gripping it just as tightly as she did back then.
Επιμέλεια: Αλβανίδου Γεωργία
